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Del Duca promises expansion of benefits for workers and training programs to help employers

The front-runner for the Ontario Liberal leadership crown wants to expand the social safety net to protect precarious workers while ensuring businesses can find the employees they need.

Former economic development minister Steven Del Duca will release an “Economic Dignity Charter” on Monday designed to guarantee basic group benefits for employees without any workplace coverage.

At the same time, Del Duca said he wants to make it easier for employers to hire well-trained workers by boosting Ontario’s retraining programs.

“Economic dignity should not just be for the lucky few,” he told the Star in an interview Friday.

“I want to create an economy in which both entrepreneurs and their employees can truly thrive. Employers need a properly trained workforce and employees deserve to have a basic level of support so that they can be healthy and productive.”

To that end, Del Duca would like to see a “portable, government-facilitated benefits program for self-employed and contract workers as well as those employed by small businesses.”

Such an ambitious program, which he maintained is vital in the “gig economy” where workers juggle different precarious jobs, would address heath and dental coverage, pensions, life insurance, and parental leave.

It would be developed in consultation with businesses, labour unions, and other stakeholders.

Del Duca would also revive the $15-an-hour minimum wage and tie it to the rate of inflation. It remains at $14-an-hour after Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives, who toppled the Liberals in last year’s election, cancelled a planned $1 raise as of this past Jan. 1.

The son of immigrants from Italy and Scotland said that Ontario should again be a place where “a person could go as far in life as their talent and effort would take them.”

“Far too often today, this is no longer the case because our economy has changed,” he said, emphasizing a stronger safety net also benefits businesses because they can count on “a reasonable floor of support” from government.

“Basic workplace benefits and training opportunities are needed more than ever before and government has a responsibility to lead.”

The Liberals, who lost official party status in the legislature in the June 2018 election after almost 15 years in power, will elect a new leader on March 7 at the International Centre in Mississauga.

Del Duca, whose campaign boasts more endorsements than his rivals, is the consensus front-runner.

MPP Michael Coteau (Don Valley East), another former cabinet minister, has also been criss-crossing the province building support.

Alvin Tedjo, a former Liberal candidate in Oakville-North Burlington, is also running for leader.

MPP Mitzie Hunter (Scarborough-Guildwood), a former minister in premier Kathleen Wynne’s government, is expected to join the contest on Wednesday.

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In the 124-member legislature, the Tories have 73 seats — including Speaker Ted Arnott, who does not caucus with the government — the New Democrats have 40 MPPs, the Liberals have six, there are three former Tory MPPs sitting as Independents, Green Leader Mike Schreiner, and there’s one vacancy with the recent resignation of Grit Nathalie Des Rosiers.

Ontario voters next head to the polls in 2022.

Robert Benzie is the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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